As I said before, big set up chapters. Klara has a grand story to tell, not just a romantic one, so I really want to have her feel like she's part of the world.
Thank you to everyone who read this previous chapters! Enjoy!
Chapter Two
The 99th Trainees Squad – Part 1
Year 842
Within Wall Rose
They'd been standing in the mid-morning sun for nearly an hour, the once cool air now unbearable as the heat bore down on them from above. Klara had yet to see their commanding officer, but she knew he was there. She could feel his beady black eyes watching them from some unseen corner; she knew better than to look for him, however. This was a test, and she was not about to be the first one who failed it.
It was the first week of what would be three years of grueling training, mostly focused on collecting their gear and fitting their uniforms. Every cadet was allowed to have their preferred shirt beneath their jacket, a bit of personalization that Klara had always found endearing. She'd chosen a blue shirt, deciding one collar was more than enough for her to deal with.
Despite the, relatively, easy time they'd had so far, a handful of trainees had dropped out already, unaccustomed to the time away from their families. It had been mostly the younger recruits, twelve or thirteen years of age. Klara understood that starting them so young made it easier to adjust to using the ODM gear, but she could not help but feel it was downright cruel.
Suddenly, her delay in joining did not seem so terrible a thing.
She was one of the oldest in the unit, and certainly the oldest female, which left her in charge of the girls' barracks. Duty assignments, light discipline, and curfew enforcement were under her control, but her punishment for everyone's failure to follow orders was also more severe. Given the impromptu pillow fight she had to endure the other night, Klara had a feeling she'd be the fittest cadet of the bunch upon graduation.
Someone sighed in front of her.
Dieter Karlson was a boy from the Interior, well within Wall Sina, and his attitude reflected it. He was a kid who'd never done a day of work in his life, and expected to breeze through training much like anything else.
"If someone had told me joining up just meant standing around all day, I'd have done it sooner," the boy complained. Directly behind him, Klara could do little more than glare at the back of his blonde head. "My father thinks too highly of these people. What a waste of-"
Klara never heard him approach. All she did was blink, and then their training officer, Nelek Sokolof, was there, bearing down on Dieter from behind. It made her hair stand on end, seeing the man suddenly in front of her, and it took all her willpower to keep from stepping back.
Nelek was not an imposing man. He was a few inches shorter than her with a terrible bowl cut and a crooked nose. His voice rarely rose higher than a whisper, which led to many cadets underestimating him, and they quickly regretted it.
Now it was Dieter's turn.
"Taxes," Nelek said in that quiet tone, which somehow carried as far as a shout. Since most of the cadets were young, he was still taller than them, and his mouth lined up perfectly with Dieter's ear. "It's always about taxes. You're a Sina boy, Karlson. I'm surprised you know the word."
In an instant, Nelek had swept Dieter's legs out from under him, landing the boy hard on his back. Klara could not help but glance down at the poor idiot. Others joined her in curiosity. Someone quietly snickered behind her.
"Discipline is hardly useless. I can't say the same for you."
Klara flicked her eyes upward again as the commander faced her, quickly bringing her hand to her chest in a salute. At least it was easier to face down a man when she could only see the top of his hair, although she could feel his gaze boring into her.
"Too tall," she heard him mumble before her calf lit up in pain. She was staring at the sky before she realized what was happening, her lungs wheezing and inhaling the dirt her body kicked up.
She caught the surprised green eyes of the cadet behind her.
Being the tallest in the unit was growing tiresome already. Klara suspected she would not have nearly as much trouble if she were a boy. Waiting on one of the other boys to pass her in height was going to be agonizing.
Nelek spent some time traumatizing a few more cadets until he grew bored, then he brought himself to the front of the formation. He looked over each row, clearly dissatisfied with what he saw.
"Do you agree with Karlson that standing around is a waste of time?" Nelek asked. The unit remained quiet. "Well?"
"No, Commander!" they shouted in unison.
"That doesn't sound convincing. I think you agree with him. Well, maybe I do too now," Nelek said, placing his hands behind his back. There was a dangerous smirk on his face. "So, I won't have you stand anymore. Get on the track and run until I give you leave to stop. Anyone who does so before I say is out. Move."
Feet rapidly began to shuffle as the cadets attempted not to trip over one another as they made their way to the track.
"Nice going, Dieter," one mumbled as he jogged by. Several shoulder-checked the boy as they passed, nearly knocking him back to the ground. Klara simply jogged along, not out to harm, but not feeling the slightest bit of empathy either.
Several laps passed by, and Klara had already lost count of them. The sun continued its climb upward, warming the track until the dirt beneath her boots radiated as much heat as the sky. She was soaked to the bone with sweat, and was not the only one. A handful of cadets had already dropped out, gone to collect their things and go home.
"Why doesn't he say stop?" a cadet questioned beside her. Luka Bauer, the green-eyed boy from earlier, looked as miserable as she felt. Strands of black hair were plastered to his face, and his gait had turned into a desperate jumping motion rather than any real jog.
"It's a culling," Klara replied, hating how parched her tongue felt. "Too many recruits. Not enough resources. Can't have too many of us getting through."
Luka laughed, or huffed. It was hard to tell.
"Here I thought it was about being humanity's best."
She'd thought that once too, but with food supplies being stretched as far as they were in some places, she knew the military looked like an easy meal ticket. But their ranks were full enough as it was, with only the Survey Corps experiencing a sizable number of casualties. But more cadets continued to enter every year in hopes of having a stable life. It wasn't something they could maintain.
"Did you join to be humanity's best?"
Luka did not reply.
A few laps later, Klara was ready to collapse. Her arms swung limply at her side, every step was agony on her knees and lungs, but she still continued. She had a dream, and she would not allow such cruelty to keep her from it.
She began to pass a young girl, Hanna Tifft she thought, one of the youngest recruits they had. The poor thing looked on the verge of collapse, face red and breath coming out in shallow wheezes. She looked ready to pass out on the spot.
"Why are you still going?" she found herself asking between breaths. "Don't kill yourself for this. Try another year."
"Can't," Hanna wheezed. "Can't go home."
Klara noticed then that she was crying too, and said no more on the matter. But she found herself staying by Hanna's side then, even if the small girl's gait hurt her knees more. When she tripped, Klara helped her up, keeping a hand on her arm for encouragement.
"We're almost there," she told her. "I'm sure of it."
Not long after, Hanna fell with a cry, and it was clear that she would not be getting up again.
Klara skidded to a halt on the track, looking down at the girl. She knew she should have kept going – doing anything else would likely result in her expulsion as well – and yet, she couldn't. All she saw were the desperate tears running down Hanna's face, and she knew she could not leave it be.
So, Klara picked her up. Not just onto her feet, no, Klara pulled Hanna Tifft onto her back, grabbing onto her legs as the girl wrapped her arms around her. The poor thing was too exhausted to argue with the effort.
It should not have worked. Klara was already at the breaking point, and yet, she suddenly found a strength in her muscles, a fire that drove her to keep jogging, even with the added weight on her back. Not as much as she thought there would be, however. It only now occurred to her how skinny Hanna was.
"Lange!" she heard Nelek shout from somewhere beside her. "What are you doing!?"
"She hasn't stopped, Commander!" Klara shouted back, refusing to look in his direction. "She's still moving!"
It was probably the stupidest thing Klara Lange had done in her life – and there had been no shortage of stupidity on her part – but her heart rested easy, despite the heat and the exhaustion, knowing it had done the right thing. No matter what happened after that, she would be content.
Sometime after, Nelek called them to a halt, and there was a loud collective groan as all the cadets collapsed on the spot.
"Not you, Lange," Nelek said, voice deeper than usual. "Keep running."
Klara blinked in surprise, then nodded solemnly, accepting her punishment. She placed Hanna gently on the ground, gave their commander a salute, and continued on.
The shadows grew long. Her fellow cadets had left the track long ago, gone to clean up and eat a well-deserved meal, but Klara jogged on, drained past the point of thought. All she could do was focus on one step at a time, anything more and she would probably fall into the dirt and never move again.
"Have you had enough, Lange?" she heard Nelek shout. She couldn't even muster the strength to reply. "Alright, you may stop."
The instant the word left his mouth, Klara lost complete control of her body, and she collapsed onto the track. There was dirt in her mouth and a rock lodged somewhere in her cheek, but she did not care. She was no longer moving. That may as well have been heaven.
She laid there for some time, eyes fixed on a blurry horizon, until a boot entered her vision.
"If you insist on carrying the weight of others, this is what will happen. You will work harder and longer, and you will be alone."
What a stupid lesson.
Klara glanced up at Nelek, and could have sworn he had two heads. "I guess I'll just have to be stronger then."
Her head hit the ground again, and she blacked out.
It was dark when she came to, the sun long gone, and the only source of light were distant lamps from their barracks.
With a groan, Klara stretched out, feeling joints pop and muscles screech from use. She sat up slowly, testing every part of her body before putting weight on it, but when she got to her feet, she wavered, and fell right back onto the ground.
"That old bastard," Klara moaned, rubbing her head. It felt ready to split in two. "He really went and left me out here. Dinner is probably over too."
For a long time, Klara sat there, cross-legged, watching the lamps waver in the cool breeze, wondering how long it would take her to get back by crawling. Falling asleep where she was seemed like a better prospect.
She leaned back into the dirt with a sigh. "I always preferred the outdoors anyway."
The stars above were bright and numerous, far past the point of counting. The sky felt bigger so far from home, wilder and grander, even though she could pick out the same constellations she and Matteo had told stories about over the years. She wondered if it would be the same outside the walls.
Was someone out there, somewhere, in the wide-open world, staring at the night sky as she was now? Did they have the same constellations? Did they have the same stars?
Were titans real to them or only a myth?
It was the one belief that she'd always held, one that her grandfather had shared with her, that there were people beyond the walls, somewhere. They could not be all that remained of humanity. The world felt far too big for that to be true. Maybe they were in walled-off cities too, wondering the same thing about them.
Footsteps caught her attention. Klara turned her head, noticing three figures approaching her in the darkness.
"There she is!" she heard Luka call out. They picked up the pace, and were at her side a moment later. Hanna kneeled down and all but shoved a waterskin into her mouth. Klara could hardly complain as the cool liquid eased her parched throat.
"Commander Nelek threatened to punish anyone who came out to get you," Hanna said quietly, stepping back. "But we couldn't just leave you out here."
Klara nearly spit the water out. "What? Why? You went through so much today to stay in! You shouldn't ruin that because of me!"
"Are you the only one allowed to?" Luka asked her. His eyes were deceptively dark. "The commander could have kicked you out the instant you touched Hanna. I know you're aware of that, but you helped her anyway, and she gets to stay with us because of you."
Looking back over to Hanna, Klara could tell the young girl was crying again. And then she dropped to the ground, bowing to her.
"Thank you, Klara!" the girl cried, her face in the dirt. "I will never be able to repay you for your kindness!"
Feeling her cheeks heat up, Klara shook her head. "No! No, you don't need to…I mean…surely anyone would have…um…"
"Get off the ground, Tifft. You're making a fool of yourself."
The third cadet, Jonas Hagen, stepped forward, grimacing at Hanna. Like Dieter, he was from Wall Sina, although he did not have the same aloofness. He still looked at everyone like they were the dirt beneath his boots, but there was a seriousness to his demeanor. He had no ulterior motive for joining; he was there to serve.
"Why are you here?" Klara asked, staring up at Jonas in surprise. He'd given no indication of being friendly to anyone, although he tolerated conversation with Dieter from time to time. "You're the last person I expected to risk punishment."
Jonas snorted. "It was a test, you idiots. The commander is seeing who is willing to help a fallen comrade, and who is just going to leave them behind. It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that you're his favorite, Lange. He's going to push you harder because you have potential."
"That still doesn't explain why you're here."
He rolled his eyes. "You're my competition for top spot. If you fall out, who's going to push me to become better? Tifft? Bauer? Neither of you are near my league."
Hanna glared at Jonas, but Luka just nodded and accepted the boy's assessment of him.
"Can you stand, Lange?"
"For all of five seconds."
In the end, Klara made it back to the barracks with the help of Luka and Jonas on either side of her. Both were much shorter than her at the time, and it was an awkward affair dragging her back. All the while, Hanna kept thanking her, doing so louder whenever Jonas told her to cut it out.
They all froze when they saw Commander Nelek watching them from the command building, but he only nodded and went back inside.
Weeks passed by, and while Nelek did not deal out an additional culling run, Hanna decided it was not worth the risk. Every other day, when their lessons were over and they had down time before dinner, the girls went for an extra run around the track. They also worked on other physical training. It was slow going, but Klara could tell the girl's confidence was increasing, and that was the most important part.
Sometimes, on an especially good day, Hanna would challenge Klara to a race. The girl hadn't beaten her yet, but she had a feeling that would not always be the case. She was fast for her size. Once she was older, Klara wasn't going to stand a chance.
"I've been meaning to ask, why can't you go home, Hanna?" Klara asked one evening at dinner. While it was a fairly private question, the room was buzzing with conversation from the other tables, and most cadets weren't paying attention to the others around them. In the barracks, the space could be deathly silent, and everyone knew your secrets.
Hanna bit her lip, glancing down at her plate. It was empty. She always finished her meal well before everyone else.
"I'm the oldest of ten siblings," the young girl confessed.
Luka nearly spit out his water beside Klara. "Ten?! My mother didn't know what to do with two of us."
Hanna shrugged. "It wasn't so bad when we had the farm, but my father owed some money. We had to sell it, and ever since…well, when I turned twelve, he told me to join the military or not come back at all. It didn't matter to him, so long as he no longer had to try to feed me."
Klara felt her grip tightened around her dinner knife. "What sort of man does that to his child?"
"He wasn't always that way. He used to cry a lot at night when he thought we were asleep. I think one day he just got tired of caring."
Klara looked down at the table, taking in the lines in the wood. She knew people were badly off in places, but she had no real idea how terrible it could be. Life in Shiganshina was comfortable, and the terrible news from other places a distant concern.
"I don't think I could do that," she said quietly. "If I stopped caring about what happens to others, I may as well die."
She paused, realizing how her words may have sounded, and immediately blushed.
"Not that it applies to everyone!" she clarified quickly. "That's just my personal idea."
Feeling downright humiliated, she shoved a loaf of bread in her mouth before any other words could escape, listening as Hanna and Luka laughed.
"Wow, you're the genuine thing then," Luka observed, leaning back in his chair. "I wish I could say the same. I was just bored staying at home. My brother runs the family business, and I was just dead weight, so I came here."
"There are plenty of other things you could have done besides run away from home for three years," Hanna said, eyes narrowing.
"Yeah, but I really like the uniforms. Also, who doesn't want to fly through the air with one of those contraptions? Looks fun and I get paid to do it? Not a bad life."
Hanna stole a potato off his plate and began to eat it without breaking eye contact.
"Try to never meet my grandfather. He hates people like you," Klara said with a soft smile. "He used to be in charge of the Survey Corps."
"Really? And he lived to old age? That's impressive," Luka mused, suddenly sitting up in his seat. "Wait, do you plan on joining the Scouts?"
"Always have."
"You're insane."
"I'm not the one who joined the military because I was bored."
Hanna giggled at that. "Your parents must be thrilled."
Klara shrugged. "I suppose they wouldn't like it. It's hard to say. They died when I was young."
Now it was Hanna's turn to be embarrassed. "I'm sorry! I wouldn't…that is I…I didn't mean to-"
She took a page out of her book and stuffed the potato in her mouth.
"There's nothing to apologize for. I don't remember them," Klara replied, smiling at Hanna. "I can't miss what I don't know."
Sometimes, she thought she heard someone singing. Other times, it was screaming. That was all she had. It was a housefire, she had been told, and her escape had been nothing short of a miracle. She often wondered if that was why she enjoyed being outside, a quick escape from the potential danger within.
Every now and again, her grandfather mentioned her mother, a description of warm smiles and quiet kindness, but it never meant anything to her. Her mother may as well have been a character in a book.
"You're from Shiganshina, right?" Luka asked, steering the subject away from the sensitive topic. "You must have seen a titan before."
His voice hadn't been particularly loud, yet Klara could feel eyes turning in the direction of their table. For most children, titans were little more than bedtime stories, scary monsters made up by their parents to get them to behave, but for those who lived on the outer edges of Maria, it was a bigger reality. Though the walls had not been breached in a century, there was the ever-present idea nestled in the back of their minds that just on the other side of those behemoths stood creatures determined to eat them.
"I…well, once I did, yes," Klara admitted, finding more faces focused on her, while a few others walked closer. "Civilians aren't allowed on the wall, but I managed to bribe one of the guards with a bottle of wine. I just wanted to see what the other side looked like."
Her grandfather had caught her, of course, and had given her an earful. She'd cleaned the house at least ten times over before he was satisfied that she had learned her lesson. The soldier had gotten lucky. He didn't report the man, but he did make sure to smash the bottle before he'd gotten a single sip.
"What did it look like?" asked a girl in the back, her short hair bobbing with her excitement.
"Was it tall?" asked a boy with a shaved head.
"Could it reach you?"
"Did it try to eat you?"
"No, no, nothing like that!" Klara shouted, waving her arms. "It was only the one, and it wasn't very tall at all. From so high up, it just looked…well, human."
There were quiet murmurs amongst the cadets, ranging from excitement to downright fear. Klara hadn't thought she had said anything of particular interest, but the others acted as though it was the biggest piece of information they had ever received.
"You're all so easily impressed, aren't you?"
Klara and the others turned to that familiar head of blonde hair. Sitting across from Jonas at the table next to hers, Dieter looked rather smug, his nose stuck up in the air like he couldn't stand the scent of those before him. Jonas, however, was more occupied by his drink than the brewing trouble around him.
"You act like she killed that titan, when she probably ran away the instant she saw it," Dieter continued, crossing his arms. She wasn't sure if he craved attention or was a glutton for punishment, but not a week could pass without their resident loudmouth angering someone. "If anything, she deserves our pity. People living in Shiganshina are no better than cattle, fattened up for the titans to feast on should they ever get in. Why do you think the government feeds them so well?"
She stood in an instant, feeling Luka's hand on her shoulder attempting to keep her back, while Hanna was already halfway across the space. However, none of them acted faster than Jonas, who swiftly grabbed the collar of Dieter's shirt and dragged him down onto the table, burying his face into his soup bowl.
"You really don't know when to shut up, do you, Dieter?" Jonas said, wiping the splattered soup from his platinum bangs. "Every week, someone kicks your ass, and every week, you're back at it again. Why is that? It can't be because of your name. You and I both know your family is nearly destitute. That's why they sent your pathetic hide to training, hoping you can woo some rich girl with a fancy patch on your shoulder."
Dieter began to look around as whispers erupted amongst the cadets. He looked pathetic with bits of potato soup dripping down his face, his skin having gone pure white. But Klara was more focused on Jonas, and his casual demeanor when it came to demoralizing the boy. He had the same bored look on his face he'd had moments before. It was all nothing to him.
"Face it, Dieter, the only reason you believe you can get away with your brazen idiocy is because you have me, but frankly, I'm sick of putting up with you all day. Just because your mother is a distant cousin doesn't mean I have to stick my neck out for you. Find someone else to cower behind."
With that, Jonas stood, giving Klara a curt nod before leaving the building.
The space had fallen silent again, all eyes on Dieter as he stared after Jonas, shaking. He'd been so thoroughly dressed down that Klara almost felt a pang of sympathy for him. But his situation did nothing to make up for his actions, so she repressed the feeling.
"What are you looking at?!" he shouted suddenly, turning to the rest of them. Some cadets looked away, but most kept watching, no longer intimidated by his status. "Find something else to stare at, you lowborn piece of-!"
A potato caught Dieter in the temple and sent him to the ground.
Hanna glared at the fallen cadet, another piece of ammunition in hand. "You heard Jonas. You're nearly destitute. I think you need these more than me."
Then she hit him in the head again.
The first year was mostly physical training and studies; the only time they touched ODM gear was when they were learning to dismantle and clean it. No cadet was to perform maneuvers until Nelek believed they were physically capable of handling the strain. Every year, there were casualties from the exercises, and he was not going to add more unnecessarily because someone became impatient.
When they first began to train on the gear, it was small movements. Leaping from one platform to another, swinging around while harnessed to a pole, but no amount of preparation could really get one ready for that first time in the forest, with nothing keeping them from harm except their wits and skill.
While many were still hesitant, keeping low to the ground and using more gas than necessary to move around, the other, more proficient cadets would find themselves high up in the branches, hooting and hollering as they made passes at each other.
And then there was Klara Lange.
"She's doing it again, isn't she?" Jonas asked, coring an apple with his knife.
Luka stood at the edge of the branch they'd perched on, looking down. Klara had taken a shine to hooking her grapples into the underside of tree branches, allowing her to 'stand' upside down in a tree. Her hair was flowing gently in the breeze, arms swinging back and forth without a care.
"Well, at least she's predicable," Luka said, chuckling. "You still with us, Klara?"
"For now," she mumbled, enjoying the swaying motion. Heights had never bothered her, even in the trees that were taller than her house three times over. If anything, she felt more at ease in them, and had taken quickly to ODM maneuvers.
The branch shook as another grapple clung to it. Hanna quickly joined the trio, swinging onto the branch with practiced ease.
"Someone's with the commander today," she said, pointing to a lower branch where Nelek stood with another, far taller soldier.
"I didn't realize the commander had friends," Luka commented, sitting on the branch and letting his legs swing. "I figured he was more like Jonas."
The older cadet snorted, but said nothing else. It wasn't that he was necessarily friends with them, but the longer training went on, the more often they found the quiet boy in their company. Klara and the others were quickly proving to be top candidates, and Jonas may have simply been attracted to their skillsets. However, Klara had a sneaking suspicion he actually enjoyed their company. They had accepted him for who he was, occasional shit attitude included, which was far more than others had done. Most just gave him a wide berth.
Looking toward the commander, Klara felt her mouth drop open.
"I know who that is," she said, releasing her legs and swinging down. "That's Keith Shadis. He's the current commander of the Survey Corps."
"Why is it that you know everyone?"
"Lucky, I guess."
Klara detached her grapples, dropping a good fifteen feet before she fired them again into a nearby tree.
There was something so freeing about swinging through the air. While most cadets used an even combination of gas and gravity to move about, Klara had taken to using as little gas as possible. She would swing high and dive low, gaining momentum that shot her forward with as much speed as the gas canisters. It felt like flying, gravity no longer her enemy, but her ally as she swung deftly amongst the trees.
Sometimes, she would simply drop midair, exhilarated by the sensation. The first time she'd done it, Nelek had her back on the track, doing laps in her full gear. But she hadn't stopped, and he had given up on punishing her. She even thought he smiled at her once while she did it.
That day, however, she did nothing fancy, hopping quickly from tree to tree before landing in front of the two veterans. Nelek seemed surprised by her sudden appearance, but Keith wasn't. He gave her a warm smile as she presented the crispest salute she could muster. There was something dark in his eyes, she noticed. He looked much too old to her.
"We were just talking about you, Lange," Nelek said, eying her stance. "It seems you were right, Keith, she does have a sixth sense about these things. Although she hasn't fallen out of any trees yet. At least, nothing that wasn't on purpose."
Klara narrowed her eyes. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"
Nelek blinked, eying the two of them before nodding once. "Granted."
"So, you're still single then," Klara said, turning to Keith without missing a beat.
Keith frowned at her, a retort clearly on his tongue, but he was cut off by Nelek's sudden burst of laughter. The sound echoed across the forest, stopping several cadets in their tracks as they swung across the space. Klara found her hair standing on end, and felt herself entering the fight or flight response.
"Get out of here, Klara, before I have Nelek make you run," Keith said, smiling again.
"That won't work, Keith. Girl seems to love running as much as falling through the trees," Nelek replied as Klara dived off the branch and joined the others.
The last few days had been a free-for-all training, allowing the cadets to get used to the maneuvers and work on what techniques best fit their style. Soon enough, they would add their blades to the mix, and train to kill titans, although according to their commander, it was too soon. He wouldn't trust half of them with a butter knife, much less blades designed to cut through the thick flesh of a titan.
"Who do you think is going to be the top candidate?" Luka asked as he casually swung around a tree. "Jonas or Klara?"
Hanna shook her head. "What does it matter? Klara doesn't even need to be in the top ten for the Survey Corps."
"So, you say Jonas then. Sorry, but mine's on Klara. It's like he said, the commander sees potential in her."
"The commander or you?"
"Me?! I…you…why would I?" Luka panicked, nearly ramming into a branch before course correcting at the last second. "You play dirty, Tifft."
Klara sighed. "Do they know we're right here?"
She barely caught a shrug from Jonas. "I doubt they would talk about it otherwise."
And then he was gone, speeding away faster than he had any right to at his size. The other cadets looked on in awe as he twisted and swung through the course with practiced ease. It looked natural on him, a dance where there should have been erratic chaos. But despite how good he was, Klara knew he only wanted to be better. Nothing was good enough for him.
With a shrug, Klara swung upward, using her momentum to climb high into the trees. She liked to go as high as she could and glance out over the forest, taking in the hundreds of tree tops spread out before her. It was a view that wasn't afforded to everyone, and she found a sort of strange beauty in that fact alone.
"And she's gone again," she heard Luka call out below.
"She'd never live on the ground again if she could," echoed Hanna.
Well, they weren't wrong.
Bounding down a few branches, Klara smiled in contentment. Stretching her arms out wide, she leaned backwards until she was falling headfirst toward the ground. She gave it a second before releasing her grapples and swinging in a wide arc, unable to suppress her whoopof joy. She caught up to the others with ease, using the gas to spin herself around with a giggle.
"Show off," Luka huffed, but there was a smirk on his face. Her friend was rarely solemn, and brought their group much needed laughter.
"Jealousy doesn't suit you," she replied, sticking her tongue out.
"No. I'd much rather leave that to Dieter."
The cadet in question was currently going through the course at breakneck speed, which might have been impressive if it weren't obvious that he was barely in control.
Ever since Jonas brought him down with the harsh truth, Dieter had taken to being a quiet loner. He'd huff loudly on occasion, but mostly kept to himself, which was more beneficial to him than he'd ever admit. He was punished far less and actually focused on his studies. But unlike Jonas, he wasn't a natural, and clearly struggled to get to where his cousin stood, and his frustration from that effort was beginning to boil over.
"He's going to hurt himself doing that," Klara muttered.
"Well, maybe we'll finally be rid of him then," Hanna said. Both Klara and Luka turned to each other with wide gazes before settling on their friend, but her frown only deepened. She was not going to back down from her comment.
Luka laughed and shook his head.
Moments later, the calm was interrupted by several shrieks.
Her prediction coming true, one of Dieter's lines had snapped, and he was hurtling toward the ground, panicked and unable to control his fall.
She didn't hesitate.
Klara broke away from the group, pulling into a deep dive and using what gas she had left to propel herself toward the cadet before he hit the ground. She knew she was going too fast and that swinging out of it might very well crush her legs, but it was the only way to reach Dieter in time.
She released her grapples right before crashing into him, less than ten feet from the ground. Klara grunted as she felt her gear pull at the entirety of her body, the straps that encircled her legs cutting into her skin despite the clothing. She tried to get the airborne again, but the strain was too much, and the grapples came loose, launching them forward into the forest.
Klara managed to hold tight to Dieter, rolling into the fall and taking the first hit on her back. After that, she lost all control, and they toppled across one another until they skidded to a halt in the grass.
She laid there, motionless, staring at the back of Dieter. Her body was on fire, legs and back pulsing, and her lungs were wheezing from having the air knocked out of them, but it felt like nothing when she saw that he was still breathing.
He rolled over a moment later, wide-eyed. "You…you saved me!"
"Yeah," Klara groaned, attempting to sit up. Her arms struggled under the weight of her body. "Try not to do that again, okay?"
"But you could have died!"
Klara leveled a look at the cadet, seeing a boy who thought she was mad for saving him, who believed that she would rather watch him die simply because they did not tolerate one another. Maybe others would, but in that split second when she registered what was happening, all she had seen was a life in danger, anything else attached to it was something to worry over later.
"And you would have."
Dieter said nothing else, frozen in shock.
They were swamped immediately after by the other cadets. Klara could barely keep track of all the words assaulting her as she was lifted off the ground by several pairs of hands. The same happened to Dieter, but the boy promptly fainted, overwhelmed.
"Klara, are you insane?!"
Little Hanna marched through the crowd of cadets, parting them with the sound of her voice alone. She glared up at her, actually managing to send a chill up Klara's spine.
"Why would you do something so stupid!?" she shouted, punching her in the stomach. It wasn't hard, but not exactly light either. She might have fallen over if Luka and another cadet, Kurtis, hadn't been holding her up.
"You didn't even waver," Luka said quietly beside her. "Before I even knew what was happening, you were gone."
Klara tried to shrug it off, uncomfortable with the scrutiny, but found it impossible from her position.
"I just couldn't let him die," she admitted quietly.
The chaos was eventually broken up by the arrival of Nelek and Keith. Most of the cadets were ordered back to training, save for the ones helping Dieter to the medic.
"That was foolish of you, Lange," the commander said, his gaze dark as he stared down at her. She could feel Kurtis shaking under her arm. He feared the man before them more than anything. "You are not experienced enough to perform a stunt like that. Even fully trained soldiers have died doing similar maneuvers. We could have wound up with two dead cadets today because of your recklessness."
He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Good job."
Klara blinked, and felt her knees buckle, her body falling briefly until the boys picked up the extra weight.
"I'll take her from here," Keith said, grabbing one of her arms and easily lifting her from Luka's grip. "The two of you get back to training."
"Yes, sir!" the boys shouted in unison, disappearing with Nelek.
The two walked quietly in the forest for a while, nearing the carriage that waited to take any wounded away. Every once in a while, Klara would glance up at Keith, noting how he looked deep in thought. She knew he saw his soldiers die every time they left Wall Maria, and wondered if it still got to him. Did she scare him doing what she did?
She grinned up at him, unable to bear the thought. "I guess that technically counts as me falling."
Keith did not laugh. He stopped walking and turned to face her, holding her up with a tight grip on both her shoulders.
"You will make an excellent Scout, Klara," he said softly, eyes not quite able to hold hers.
She'd never heard anyone sound so disappointed before.
Until next time!